The present invention relates to proteins related to encapsulation.
The present invention also relates to genes encoding proteins related to encapsulation.
All living organisms have immune systems to protect themselves from foreign materials such as invading pathogens. The immune reactions are categorized into inherent immune reaction and acquired immune reaction. The main differences between these two immune reactions lie in how the foreign material that invades into a body is recognized. Acquired immune reaction is a differentiated and complex immune system where B or T lymphocytes recognize specific portions of a foreign material and produce immunoglobulins. On the other hand, inherent immune reaction is a somewhat non-specific and less-differentiated immune system where components that exist commonly on microbial cell walls are recognized. Acquired immune reaction, however, is known to lack an ability to distinguish the pathogens from self-antigen for which an immune reaction is not required. Recent reports indicate that inherent immune reaction performs a leading role in the antigen selection of B or T lymphocytes in acquired immune reaction.
As the similarities are found between the immune system of mammals and insects, such as Drosophila which has an inherent immune system only, insect immune reaction is considered as a good model system to study the inherent immune system. An insect""s immune system can be categorized mainly into humoral and cellular immune reactions. There are examples of cellular immune reaction wherein small foreign materials such as bacteria or fungi are eliminated by phagocytosis and when very large foreign materials such as mycelia or parasites invades, they are surrounded completely by many blood cells through an encapsulation reaction. Encapsulation reaction has only been studied by microscopic observations to date. However, few studies were performed on a molecular level.
It is known that malaria larva or eggs of vespidae can survive in their host only under a condition that the malaria larva or the eggs of vespidae secrete materials which inhibit encapsulation reaction. It is unknown, however, what inhibits or induces encapsulation. Pneumoconiosis in mammals is a similar reaction to encapsulation, but the mechanism or the related materials are not known.